


Prompt 17 (Altea 2)

by Yoselin



Series: L&L Tumblr Prompts [20]
Category: Love & Legends (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 05:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15332778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoselin/pseuds/Yoselin
Summary: Originally posted to Tumblr.“You’ve always felt like home.”





	Prompt 17 (Altea 2)

There are many things that separate Chicago with this world, but perhaps the most shocking one is the stars. While the harsh glare of streetlights and the dark clouds of pollution shield the night sky, this world displays it in its full splendor. Thousands of stars, more than I could ever count in a lifetime, dot the dark skyline and cast their steady glow across the small hill we’re on.   
“I love the sky,” I remark. My fingers stroke trough Altea’s soft hair. It’s gotten longer now and it reaches just past her shoulders. I coil the pink strands around my fingers and earn a content noise from her.   
Altea rests on the hill and stares at the sky. Her eyes take in the many stars and a soft smile plays across her features.   
“I don’t remember many stars in Chicago when we went,” she remarks. She pronounces Chicago wrong, stressing the wrong vowels, yet I’ve never heard it pronounced lovelier before.   
I hum and continue twisting the strands in her hair. She seems content on letting me and even tilts her head to rest on my shoulder to give me better access.   
A peaceful serenity settles between us, something soft and warm, and I mentally trace the constellations in the sky. I don’t know these constellations, astronomy was never my thing, but I still find delight in finding figures in them.   
“Chicago has too many artificial lights that block off the night. I like this view better,” I remark.   
Altea closes her eyes and presses her face to my neck. I can feel her soft breathing against my pulse. My own heartbeat accelerates. She has a magical effect on me that has nothing to do with the magic she can do with her hands-or the actual magic power she has.   
“Ecclasiel had a similar sky. Next to the castle where I grew up, there was an observatory. My childhood was spent traveling there often. My mother loved the night sky,” she murmurs.   
I place a hand above hers and stroke a pattern into her skin. She doesn’t often talk about her homeland, there’s no love lost for the countrymen that once bid her to choose between her birthright and her birth responsibility, so I pay attention when she does.   
“Was it nice? The observatory I mean?” I gently prod at her.   
Altea hums and moves her head from my shoulder. She sits up and stares up at the sky. The starlight casts smooth shadows over her face making her look like something ethereal and beautiful-not that she wasn’t stunning before.   
I sit up next to her and tuck my knees to my chest. There’s something so romantic and peaceful about simply watching the sky with my fiancée. The air between us is soft and warm somehow.   
“I liked it,” Altea relents after a brief pause, “But I preferred the Academy. Ecclasiel has a large Academy where the country’s few magic practitioners reside. My parents traveled there when they were forced to, to host meetings. I tagged along sometimes and watched people practice spells. It improved my own magic.”  
To prove her point, she makes sparks ignite at her fingertips. They’re pink and white and she traces a figure in the space before her. A shimmering heart floats in the air before she suspends the magic and it disappears in a warm shower of sparks. I watch them fall on the grass and blink out of existence.   
“What else did you like about Ecclasiel?” I ask.   
Altea’s homeland is a sore spot for her, a part of her misses it and resents the fact that she was forced to leave, but there’s a sudden light that appears in her eyes when she speaks of it.   
She misses her country, misses her culture and language, and resents leaving more than having to leave. Her country, or parents, once asked her to choose between the magic that ran through her veins or the royalty in her blood. She had chosen to be true to herself and had fled her homeland, yet the love she held for it still existed within her. It is one thing to take someone from their home, but it is another thing entirely to take their home from them.   
Altea intertwines are fingers together and observes the way the soft moonlight shines in our engagement rings. They had been fashioned specifically for us. Mine has a diamond at the center, a traditional ring from my world, and Altea’s has a pink gemstone from her homeland, something we had found out of sheer luck in a merchant’s cart. Both of our homes are on display on our fingers. Our rings represent that we came from different lands yet ended up together all the same.   
“There was a field of lavender flowers by our castle. The palace often smelled of lavender and the spring breeze would carry it on our clothing. I liked sitting in the field when I had free time and practicing my craft. The flowers hid my magic from view,” she replies.   
I wait for her to continue. Her eyes have taken a far away look and I can almost feel her returning to her homeland. Her memory travels the ocean that separates Reiner’s domain from her own and she drifts back to Ecclasiel’s shores.   
“There was also a river than ran through the capital. The water was pink and I liked to watch it kiss the shore. Pink is my favorite color obviously,” she smirks and gestures to her attire.   
I snort and stroke her knuckles. She closes her eyes and bites her lip. By now, I can feel her longing for her homeland. A part of her will always yearn for its safety and beauty even if she knows she cannot return to it.   
“Do you miss it?” I ask. I bite the inside of my cheek suddenly weary of the answer.   
I know, more than anyone, what it is like to be far from home. Chicago is an entire world away and I never imagined I would long for it. I spent so many years daydreaming about leaving it for college, mapping out all the places I wanted to see that were outside its borders, yet now I want to return to it. I miss the chatter and bustle of the city, I miss the glare of the streetlights, I miss the scents of the restaurants and of the gas spilling from trucks, and I miss the atmosphere of thousands of people living separate lives all the while surrounding each other.   
I know what it is like to miss your homeland, and I don’t want that for Altea. Were she to give the word, I would go to her country with her. We could leave this domain behind as soon as the war was over and cross an ocean. Wherever she went I would follow because, in a way, she is my home.   
Chicago was my beginning but she is my present and future.   
Altea looks down at our hands. Our rings from different worlds wink up at us in the starlight. She traces her own gem with her other hand, presses her finger into it until it leaves an imprint on the pad of her skin, and offers me a soft smile.   
“Yes and no,” she admits, “I miss its shores, yes. But I have found a new home, my raven.”   
She lifts my hand to hers and presses a kiss to my ring. I feel color bloom across my face and my heart speeds up a little.   
“What home is that? Reiner’s castle?” I speak to distract her from the blush on my face. By the way her lips quirk up in a smirk, I can tell I was unsuccessful.   
She moves forward and presses a kiss to my lips. It is brief and chaste, yet it sends a spark all across my body. I lean into it before she draws back. Her eyes are warm in the moonlight and her smile is soft. I can see all the affection she has for me in her gaze, and I know I project the exact same kind of love for her in my own.   
She intertwines our fingers once more. Our rings bump into each other as she does so. My ring modeled after Chicago and hers after her own homeland. Two rings that signify that we have come from different homes yet ended up becoming each other’s new homes, and offers me a smile that is brighter than all the stars in the sky combined.   
Her answering whisper is soft and full of love and promise.   
**”You’ve always felt like home,** my Raven. As long as I am with you, I am home.”


End file.
